| Oh, hey! The digital-only version of Email Stars will be available this Thursday, March 16 for $1000, for six days. Here are 3 things you can do in the meantime: See what’s inside Email StarsRead some Google reviewsApply for a scholarship if you need one [link expired] We’ll get back to you by the 15th if you've been awarded a scholarship. Here for your questions if you’ve got ‘em! |
Prefer to listen in? Tune to the audio version of this email:
From across a three-tiered display of tripping canoes, I catch the vibrant red hair of a woman’s face I have spent many hours looking at in the last year.
My heart speeds to one and a half times its normal rate and I start to feel sweaty. I turn abruptly and walk in the opposite direction, rubbing my sweaty hands up and down my pant legs.
I’m already this close to tears.
“I guess I won’t go talk to her,” I think. “I really just don’t feel like crying today. Not in front of strangers.”
But I turn around and walk toward her anyway, hoping she has not noticed me just do four laps around the canoe display, where she is leaning against a 15 ft solo canoe in brightly dyed carbon kevlar with matching skid plates and a detachable yoke—a canoe is as beautiful as she is. (Almost.)
Before I can get a word out I am hiccupping and heaving and I have snot all over my face. “I’m going through a divorce,” I say in a high-pitched voice because it’s the only way I can talk without crying.
“There are so many men here,” I hiccup, not even making sense. “Seeing a woman doing this on her own, it just meant so much to me. You made me believe I could do it. Oh my God last year was so hard. I went on three backcountry trips by myself.”
It’s all tumbling out of my mouth at once, sounding nothing like my prepared speech.
Christina assures me it’s okay I’m crying. “You’re my third crier today!” she says. Eventually, I calm down enough to get a picture.
This is Camper Christina and she taught me how to camp in the backcountry.
I would say her program “changed my life” but I don’t believe online courses change people’s lives. People change their own lives. But we need friends, teachers and tools to guide us, and Camper Christina is one of those people.
When I reflect on the last eighteen months, I’m proud to still be standing. There were times when I wasn’t sure I was going to make it, times when I wasn’t sure I wanted to keep going.
One of the things that saved me and reminded me how strong I am is figuring out backcountry camping. I had zero survival skills and didn’t own so much as a sleeping bag.
I had to figure out bears.
I had to figure out boats.
I did not figure out food but I did choke down a lot of protein bars.
I learned that birch bark is really nice for starting fires. I learned never to use a gas heater in a tent unless you have a carbon dioxide monitor. I learned to always leave a trip itinerary with someone back home. I learned that the winds on Georgian Bay can turn on you at any time, so it’s a bad idea to paddle there alone, and one hundred and one other things. (I wrote about it on Substack.)
Most of all, backcountry camping taught me that I am the baddest bitch I know and that I will never quit on Tarzan.
I am so grateful to Camper Christina for helping me to learn that lesson.
She sells her courses on Udemy* for $19.99 CAD. She does this because she loves backcountry camping and wants more people to enjoy it safely and responsibly.
A lot of people say they want to create an online course because it will help so many people. I never really vibed with that, honestly. I got into this business to make money. Sometimes I forget that for a lot of people an online course can be a catalyst for really big shifts in their lives, even when it’s got nothing to do with business. Sometimes I forget how incredible it is that we have this level of access to courses and programs.
We are the luckiest.
I hope you remember that as you’re slugging it out with your slide decks and your fillable PDF worksheets, thinking to yourself, “Do people even need this thing, anyway?”
Yes, most probably someone does.
In fact, it might be exactly the thing they need right now. What if you are exactly the person to be somebody else’s Camper Christina?
I’ll leave you with that thought for today, and hope that one day someone might call me “the Camper Christina of Email Marketing.”
Fingers crossed
T-Boss
Email Stars is coming soon—Starting on Thursday the digital-only version is on sale for six days, at $1000 USD
Camper Christina’s Backcountry Camping Course is available 365 days a year—use the link on her website, since otherwise Udemy gobbles up most of the profit
Kelly Diels’ 50th Birthday Sale is happening today—had to sneak this one in since it’s super rare and Kelly has a unique, justice-centered approach to creating and marketing your offers that I know many of my subscriber will love [link expired]
